Approximately 3,000 years before Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin released the "Hula-Hoop," Egyptian children would make circles from dried grape vines and swing them around their waists. The ancient Greeks even used hoops as form of exercise to lose weight. Research being presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine and 2nd World Congress on Exercise is Medicineâ® looks at hooping to determine the relative exercise intensity and caloric expenditure of the resurgent practice.

"Hooping as an exercise dates back to ancient civilizations and was wildly popular in the 1950s" said John Porcari, Ph.D., FACSM, lead author of this study. "Today, it's becoming a popular form of choreographed group exercise, and we sought out to determine the effect of hooping on physical fitness and whether or not the intensity falls within ACSM guidelines for improving cardiovascular fitness."